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The Vietnam Casebook is the tenth volume in the “Psychosocial Stress Series,” which deals with various acute and chronic stress disorders. This current volume focuses on posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) — chronic and delayed, which is exemplified in this book by the study of U.S. combat veterans who fought in the Vietnam war. The average age of the U.S. men was 19 when first in combat — far too inexperienced to have had any idea of the horrors of guerrilla warfare tactics and brutality.
More than 58,000 U.S. soldiers were killed in Vietnam in active combat and, tragically, a larger number committed suicide after coming home. Those who survived the war all eventually developed PTSD: The chronic symptoms began to appear after homecoming and increased in severity over the years, unless the veteran received psychotherapy.
For the many veterans who returned at the height of the U.S. antiwar movement, homecoming was a psychological shock. They experienced civilian ostracism and outright hostility, and it is hard to say which hurt the most. Furthermore, unlike veterans of World War I and II who were “debriefed” somewhat on their two-week sea voyage home, the Vietnam veterans returned by air, in less than 24 hours, and the sudden change from war reality to civilian reality was a jolt. These homecoming trauma coincided with the onset of many posttraumatic symptom manifestations.